


A Thousand Wørds

by ErinPtah



Series: Truthiness And Relative Dimensions In Space [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Fake News FPF
Genre: Alien Sex, Gen, Illustrated, Peril, Symbiotic Relationship, Temporal Paradox
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-08-11
Updated: 2008-08-21
Packaged: 2019-04-19 00:03:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14224752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErinPtah/pseuds/ErinPtah
Summary: Young Stephen is introduced to the TARDIS, while adult Stephen walks right in and attempts to fix up his room. Also: Sarah Jane advocates for proper journalism, Jack introduces young Stephen to futuristic junk food, an alien civilization needs to be saved with sexy telepathic symbioses, and the Doctor discovers at least one impossible thing before breakfast.





	1. Chapter 1

**Earth: 1964.**   
_The Doctor is in his fourth incarnation. Stephen Colbert is 44. Sarah Jane Smith is 29._

"You just _had_ . . . to make fun . . . of their hats . . . didn't you?" panted Sarah Jane as she raced into the TARDIS.

"It wasn't _my_ fault!" protested Stephen, managing to sound remarkably frustrated for someone who was completely out of breath. "I tried to be diplomatic . . . I really did . . . but they had _really stupid hats!_ "

"They also had guns!" cried Sarah Jane, slamming the door behind them.

"Being heavily armed . . . does not preclude them . . . from making terrible fashion choices!" shouted Stephen over the racket of the TARDIS dematerializing. As the ship settled into the relative calm of flight, he leaned against the wall, clutching his chest. "Phew! Haven't run that fast . . . since Helen Thomas came after me."

"You have to do a lot of running with the Doctor. You remember that bit, right?"

"Of course I remember it," said Stephen testily. "I'm just . . . not as young as I used to be. Gonna go lie down for a bit."

"Not a bad idea," put in the Doctor. "By this point you've both been up for more than twenty hours. Off you go, Sarah Jane. Now, Stephen, we'll need to find you a room . . . ."

"Oh, that's fine. I'll just take my old one."

⇔

**The Vortex.**  
 _The Doctor is in his tenth incarnation. Stephen Col-bert is 17. Jack Harkness is much too old for you._

Stephen couldn't stop turning his head.

The corridors of the TARDIS were so familiar to Jack by now as to be almost boring; but the kid, who had never even been off his own planet, seemed eager to take in every detail of every wall as though it were the frozen sapphire waterfalls of Midnight.

Not only was his enthusiasm adorable, it was catching. Jack still didn't know why the Doctor was so irritated by Stephen's presence, but somehow he no longer felt too worried about it.

"And _this_ ," he declared, swinging open the door the Doctor had specified, "is _your_ room!"

⇔

**The Vortex.**  
 _The Doctor is in his fourth incarnation. Stephen Colbert is 44._

"This is _my_ room?"

"Depends," said the Doctor with a shrug. "Do you want this one?"

Stephen looked around the sterile white chamber, trying not to look as crushed as he felt. "You didn't rearrange the rooms somehow, did you?"

"I wouldn't know."

Oh, right. _Stupid timeline-crossing continuity-breaking paradox thing._ "Are you _going_ to rearrange them, then?"

"I wasn't planning on it. Why? Do you think I should?"

"No! This room is in the same place as the room you _gave_ me, and you should keep it there! But all my stuff is gone! Where's the Delphon-English dictionary? Where's the megadodo skull? Where's the lumpy purple thing with the blinky lights? _Where_ is the _mirror?_ "

"Oh, don't be silly," said the Doctor briskly. "As far as the TARDIS is concerned, you've never been here before. I'm sure you can get everything together in good time. Meanwhile, you'll get along fine with what's here."

"Doctor, I don't think you understand," said Stephen gravely. "There is no _mirror_ in my room."

"There's bound to be a few somewhere on the ship. We can hunt them up tomorrow, see if there's one that catches your fancy . . . ."

" _Well_ ," allowed Stephen, drawing out every other word as though he were pulling taffy, "I _suppose_ I _could_ wait _all_ the _way_ until _tomorrow_ . . . it's _only_ a _mirror_ . . . I _could_ sleep _without_ one . . . ."

"That's the spirit!" said the Doctor cheerfully. "Good night!"

⇔

**The Vortex.**  
 _Stephen Col-bert is 17. Jack Harkness is older than at least one variety of dirt._

Stephen's mouth dropped open. He put a foot across the threshold, then hesitated, struck by the irrational feeling that it would all disappear if he went any farther. "This . . . is all for me?"

"That it is," said Captain Jack, grinning in a way that made Stephen feel sort of wibbly in the knees. "Go on, check it out!"

With the Captain watching, Stephen darted around the room, opening drawers and picking things up to examine them more closely. "This is awesome!" he gushed. "How did the Doctor know I was coming?"

"He didn't."

"But he had this room set up for me, right?"

"Well, sort of. He has a bit of a habit of picking up humans to tag along with him. Been doing it for centuries now. So he has a lot of rooms ready for us."

"But . . . ."

Stephen trailed off. The room _wasn't_ just set up to meet the needs of a generic human. There were too many things that seemed tailored to his interests—the water bed he had always wanted, the sculpture that looked like a whole fish trapped in amber, the book with a 2007 publication date and J. R. R. Tolkien's name on the spine. It couldn't just be coincidence.

Could it?

"Hang on," he said, belatedly realizing what Jack had implied. "You said 'us.' Are you human?"

"Yep. Well, everyone in my era has a little alien somewhere in the family tree, but I'm more than 99% human."

"Ah, don't worry about that," Stephen assured him, trying not to look too disappointed at Jack's mundanity. "My family tree looks like a Brillo pad. Wait—'your era'? When are you from?"

Jack winked at him. "Fifty-first century."

The disappointment vanished in a fresh wave of excitement. "Seriously? That's so cool! Can I ask you something?"

"I might not be able to answer, but shoot."

A thousand questions crowded into Stephen's mind, about life and technology and politics and how famous he had been; but one of them muscled its way to the fore. "How many new Tolkien books have been published by _then?_ "

⇔

**The Vortex.**  
 _The Doctor is in his fourth incarnation. Stephen Colbert is 44._

The Doctor shook his head as he strode down the corridor. "Doesn't think he can handle a room without a mirror!" he said to himself. "What _will_ I have been thinking, picking up someone like this? I hope I knew what I'll be doing."

He turned a corner. "And what in the universe could he have meant by 'lumpy purple thing with the blinky lights'? Am I going to have to hunt through intergalactic jumble sales until I find . . . ."

The Doctor stopped in his tracks.

"Unless," he said out loud, voice echoing down the halls of the TARDIS, "it was a . . . but no. No, it can't be. It's absolutely impossible."

He thought about this for a moment, then added, "Which, given my track record, means it's probably true."

Doing an about-face, he retraced his steps at a run.

Moments later, he was throwing open his new Companion's door. "When you said 'lumpy purple thing with the blinky lights', were you—oh."

Stephen was sprawled on the bed on his stomach, eyes closed, breathing soft and even.

He hadn't even taken the time to change out of his suit.

"Well," said the Doctor aloud, but quietly this time, "I suppose it can wait until tomorrow."


	2. Chapter 2

**The Vortex.**   
_The Doctor is in his fourth incarnation. Stephen Colbert is 44. Sarah Jane Smith is 29._

Sarah Jane awoke to a loud scraping noise outside her room. Pulling open the door, she found Stephen, his navy suit and gold tie somewhat rumpled from the effort of pushing a heavy cabinet down the corridor unaided.

"Would you like some help?"

"No—I got it," grunted Stephen between shoves. "Almost—there."

"All right." Just in case, she joined him, walking as slowly as she could. "Where did you get this, anyway?"

"Found it—in storage."

Had the Doctor said he could do that? Sarah Jane decided not to ask. If this man was going to be a fellow companion, she wanted to get along with him, and she was already getting the idea that he didn't like to be challenged.

"Can I at least get the door for you?" she asked as they neared Stephen's room.

"I _told_ you—I'm _fine_ ," insisted Stephen. He stopped pushing, leaned against the cabinet to catch his breath, then scurried around it and opened the door.

Sarah Jane stared. She continued to stare as Stephen heaved the cabinet, foot by foot, into the room.

The cabinet wasn't the first thing he had appropriated. Not by a long shot. The room, which had been nearly bare the day before, now contained a couple of chairs stacked next to the chest of drawers, a handful of end tables pushed haphazardly against the wall, a heap of miscellaneous junk sitting precariously on the bed, and what looked like every suit in the TARDIS' extensive wardrobe piled on the floor.

"I see you've been busy," she managed at last. "What do you need all this for, anyway?"

Stephen looked sharply at her. "Are you saying I don't deserve it?"

"No, I'm just saying—"

"I accept your apology."

Sarah Jane groaned. _Getting along with him is going to be harder than I thought._

⇔

**Earth: 2026.**  
 _The Doctor is in his tenth incarnation. Stephen Col-bert is 17. Jack Harkness has a hard time arguing that "old" is still fifteen years older than he is._

"Are they still doing Super Bowls in the 51st century?" asked Stephen, stepping out of the TARDIS and nearly slipping on a discarded styrofoam cup that was leaking something brown.

"Sure are," replied Jack. "It's the only reason anyone on Earth still remembers how to use Roman numerals."

Turning the cup with his foot, Stephen squinted at the logo. "Star-bucks. Do they sell futuristic space drinks?"

"Nah, just coffee. Pretty good, though." Jack decided to avoid making an 'out of this world' joke. He'd had enough of those during the marketing campaign for the colonization of planet Starbucks-III. "Come on! We've got to hurry if we're going to get the front of the standing room."

"Why are you so into this anyway, Jack?" asked the Doctor as they pushed through the crowds already milling about. "You know how the game's going to end."

"Are you kidding?" interrupted Stephen. "Who cares how it ends? The fun is in the game itself! Large, burly men in tight pants grunting and shoving each other around! That's what America is all about!"

He stopped talking, and seemed to wilt a little, when the Doctor gave him an exasperated look. Jack surreptitiously elbowed the Time Lord in the ribs, then added, "This is a classic game, anyway. First Super Bowl since the Miami Dolphins were reanimated. It's worth watching."

The kid still looked gloomy, so Jack tried a different tactic. "Hey, Stephen, you hungry?"

"Starving. Is future food safe to eat?"

"There's a reason we went back to 1981 for South Carolina peaches. But, yes, technically it's edible." Jack held out his hand; the Doctor sighed and placed a credit card in his palm, which Jack passed on to Stephen. "Just avoid anything with 'soylent green' in the name."

⇔

**The Vortex.**

As Stephen surveyed the room, trying to remember precisely how his things had been organized, Sarah Jane broke into his thoughts. "So, Helen Thomas is still around in 2008?"

Stephen's blood ran cold. "Why?" he said quickly. "Is she here? Did you see her?"

"No, no," replied Sarah Jane; "you just mentioned her the other day, so I thought I'd ask about her."

"Why?" demanded Stephen again, doing a rapid scan of all corners of the room just in case. "Do you know her?"

Sarah Jane seemed exasperated. ( _Women,_ thought Stephen irritably.) "Only by reputation. I'm a journalist myself, and she's a bit of a hero of mine. What's wrong? She hasn't murdered someone between my time and yours, has she?"

"I wouldn't put it past her," groused Stephen. "That woman is _vicious_. She's like a rabid dog. Sinks her teeth into a question and won't let go."

"Well, exactly! That's why I admire her so much! She's a dedicated reporter, to say nothing of all the strides she's made for women in the press."

"Oh, no. You're one of _those_ journalists, aren't you?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"The kind who . . . ." Stephen swallowed past the bad taste in his throat. "The kind who ask _questions_. The kind who challenge assumptions, and stand up to authority, and go after _facts_."

"Of course I am!" exclaimed Sarah Jane. "What other kind would I be?"

"Well, you could be like me! Report from your gut, go with what feels good, and always support your leaders. I suppose you can be forgiven, though. You're British. It's mostly the American press that get it right. And only recently, too. When are you from, again?"

"Nineteen eighty."

"That explains it! Gosh, 1980. Bill O'Reilly is still just a local anchor as far as you know." Stephen sighed in sympathy. "Really puts things in perspective."

"Oh, good!" interrupted the Doctor's voice, and they both turned to see him standing in the door. "You're awake. Come on up to the console room, Stephen. You too, Sarah Jane. But I think you'd better get dressed first."

⇔

**Earth: 2026.**

Stephen was taking mental notes.

He didn't expect to be allowed to tell people about this when he got home. It wasn't like they would believe him anyway. But as he watched the Miami Dolphins score touchdown after touchdown against the Sector B5 Meta-Creatures, he kept one eye out for futuristic weirdness to file away.

You see, one day, Stephen was going to write a novel.

It was going to be science fiction, and it was going to be epic. The hero would start out as a young, awkward kid with glasses and acne, and would somehow end up working for the biggest group of heroes in the galaxy. Then he would go on all kinds of cool adventures, kill lots of evil aliens, and have hundreds of girlfriends. Possibly all at once. Stephen hadn't worked that out yet.

Truth be told, he hadn't worked out much else, either. Whenever he tried to organize the plot, he ended up skipping ahead to the part where a million copies had been sold and he had a mob of fans clamoring for his autograph.

"Hey!" exclaimed Captain Jack, waving to a uniformed girl selling drinks. "Bring us some bug juice over here!"

Stephen smirked. _Bug juice? Haven't heard that since the Cub Scouts . . . ._

Finally the girl noticed them and came over—and all at once Stephen realized that, instead of a tray hung around her neck, there was some kind of enormous grub. He watched in horror as the girl held a cup underneath the bug's abdomen, squeezed, and then passed the resulting bubbly green stuff to Jack. "Any more, sir?"

"How about it, Doctor, Stephen? Want some?"

The Doctor waved a hand. "None for me, thanks."

"Stephen?"

Snapping out of his reverie, Stephen made a face. "I wouldn't touch that with a ten-foot pole."

 _But,_ he added to himself, _it is totally going in my book._

⇔

**The Vortex.**

As Sarah Jane, now fully dressed, approached the console room, she could hear the Doctor addressing Stephen. ". . . getting everything set up the way you want it?"

"I've been _trying_ to," corrected Stephen petulantly. "There are so many things I can't find! Have you seen a full-length mirror anywhere around? Oval, dark wood frame, little curlicues on top? It's supposed to go right across from the door."

"That sounds just like the mirror in my room," said Sarah Jane as she entered.

"Oh, good!" exclaimed Stephen. "We can put it back right after breakfast!"

"What do you mean, 'back'?" protested Sarah Jane, somewhat affronted. "I had it first! And that's first in TARDIS time. Your personal timeline hardly counts."

Stephen folded his arms. "It's going to end up in my room in the future anyway. Why not move it now and save yourself the trouble?"

"It'll end up there in the future, but right now it's the present, and I'm keeping that mirror. Tell him, Doctor."

The Doctor, who was bending over a display screen, didn't even look up. "Oh, Sarah, don't be silly. It's only a mirror."

Sarah Jane's jaw dropped. Stephen's face had broken into the most infuriatingly smug grin.

"No," continued the Doctor, "the important thing, the really important thing here, is the lumpy purple thing with the blinky lights."


	3. Chapter 3

**Earth: 2026.**

"So, what did you think?" asked Jack as Stephen followed him and the Doctor back to the TARDIS, their shadows stretching high up on the stadium wall in the light of the setting sun.

"The game was really cool!" said Stephen appreciatively. "But can we go somewhere with aliens now? No offense."

"Hey now!" protested the Doctor. "I'm an alien. What, am I not good enough for you?"

Stephen jumped. "Not at all! You're incredible. You've got a _time machine!_ But you look so—well— _human_. There must be aliens out there that have scales and tentacles and things, right?"

"Plenty," agreed Jack.

"Let's go see them, then!"

"Easy there! You're not going to see the whole cosmos in one day. You've gotta pace yourself."

"Do I _have_ to?" complained Stephen.

To his great irritation, Jack laughed. The Doctor . . .

For a split second, Stephen thought he saw the ghost of a smile on the Doctor's face.

Then he nearly tripped over his own feet; Jack caught his arm, and when he had regained his balance the stoic expression had returned.

"You should get some rest," said the Captain. "If you can't fall asleep right away, there's plenty of stuff in that room to keep you busy."

"I don't want to fall asleep!" protested Stephen earnestly as they entered the TARDIS. "There's so much to do!"

All at once the Doctor looked sort of sad. "Don't worry," he said quietly. "It'll all still be here when you wake up."

⇔

**The Vortex.**

Their argument forgotten, both companions turned to the Doctor in utter bafflement.

"Do be serious, Doctor," began Sarah Jane.

"Oh, I am serious!" said the Doctor earnestly. "The fate of an entire species is at stake here! At least, if this is what I think it is. Which it might not be. All I have to go on is Stephen's description. Now, Stephen, think hard, because this is very, very important: What exactly _was_ it?"

"How should I know?" demanded Stephen. "I'm not some elitist expert with a fancy degree in alienology. I go with my gut. And in this case my gut doesn't know squat."

"Well, surely you can describe it in more detail," protested the Doctor.

Stephen shrugged. "It was some alien thing, about yea big, and it was purple and scaly and it blinked. What else do you want to know?"

The Doctor, leaning over the console, pointed at the screen in front of him. "Did it look anything like this?"

Joining him, Stephen looked over his shoulder. "Yeah, that's it! Why did you keep asking questions if you already knew?"

"What is it, Doctor?" asked Sarah Jane, leaning over his other shoulder. The image on the screen looked sort of like a scaly purple chrysalis—with, sure enough, little lights blinking on and off within.

"It's impossible, that's what it is," declared the Doctor, staring off into the distance and addressing himself more than either of his companions. "Simply impossible. There's no way it could survive regeneration."

Holding very still, he clapped a hand on Stephen's shoulder. "What happened to it, exactly?"

Stephen looked a little rattled. "I—it wasn't my fault!"

⇔

**The Vortex.**  
 _The Doctor is in his tenth incarnation. Stephen Col-bert is 17. Establishments that give senior discounts end up owing Jack Harkness money._

Pinching himself every few minutes to keep himself awake, Stephen spread the contents of one of his cabinets out on the bed and looked the items over, picking them up and turning them over in his hands to study them more closely.

In spite of the Doctor's reassurances, he couldn't shake the feeling that this was too good to be true. It couldn't last. If he dared to let himself fall asleep, he _knew_ he would wake up to find that it had all been a dream, that he was back in his own bed on Earth with no escape except for the D &D sourcebooks stuffed under the mattress.

And if this was inevitable, then he wanted to memorize every detail before he lost it.

"Sorry, Professor Tolkien," he said out loud as he lifted the man's new novel reverently with both hands. "I wish I'd had time to read this. I'm sure it's fantastic."

His vision blurred a little, and he blinked rapidly. _Shake it off, Col-bert. Don't fall apart now._

Setting the book quickly aside, he reached for one of the objects he hadn't been able to identify. It was a lump of some unfamiliar material, lightly textured like the skin of a snake and colored in a medley of shades of purple, just the right size to nestle comfortably in Stephen's palm. He turned it slightly, watching the way the colors changed as they reflected the light . . . .

No, he realized suddenly, it wasn't just reflection. There were tiny lights winking on and off just beneath the object's surface.

_he's lonely_

Was it electric? It didn't feel like any appliance Stephen had ever known. It felt . . . soft. And warm.

"Are you alive?" he whispered.

_sleep_

Stephen's eyes slid closed. This time, he let himself drift off.

⇔

**The Vortex.**  
 _The Doctor is in his fourth incarnation. Stephen Colbert is 44. Sarah Jane Smith is 29._

" _What_ wasn't your fault?" pressed the Doctor.

"It . . . it broke," Stephen stammered. "One day I picked it up and found a big rip in the side, and it was empty and the lights were all gone. And after that it sort of flaked away.

"But you can't blame me!" he added, raising his voice to drown out the sudden feeling that the ground was crumbling beneath his feet. ( _An entire species is at stake and it might be ruined and it might be all my fault and . . . ._ ) "It was in my room! You didn't tell me not to touch it! What did you expect?"

"I do wish you'd stop being mysterious and just tell us what this thing is," complained Sarah Jane.

"What? Oh, yes, of course," replied the Doctor. "It's the chrysalis of a papilløn, from the planet Mot. It's a long-lived kind of symbiotic parapsychic lexophile. In the transitional stage, of course."

Sarah Jane rolled her eyes. "Well, that explains everything."

Thunderstruck, Stephen gaped at her. "No, it doesn't!"

Normally Sarah Jane would have explained the joke, but she was getting a little fed up with Stephen. "And what are you going to do about it?" she replied. "Ask questions? Look for facts? Question my authority?"

"You're not an authority figure. You're a lady."

"Well, excuse _me!_ I—"

"You're excused," said Stephen quickly.

Sarah Jane resisted the urge to smack him.

⇔

**Mot: 4692 AE (Ailurean Era).**

"Your Majesty? I'm afraid I have some bad news for you."

Her Royal Majesty Queen Calembour IV of Mot didn't need to hear it. The waves of grief radiating from the doctor's papilløn told her all she needed to know. Still, out of politeness, she addressed Racine directly. "What is it, Doctor?"

"The clutch, Majesty . . . they didn't make it."

"None survived?"

Racine sounded frustrated. "Your Majesty, if even one papilløn had been able to form a chrysalis, don't you think I would have announced it with cheering and trumpets? There are none."

 _It Is As Expected,_ observed Calembour's papilløn. _The Mother Is Simply Too Old._

"Nevertheless," said Calembour, "you must find some way to make this work. The people are restless, on the edge of revolt. If no new papilløn larvae are born, there will be an uprising within the next hundred years."

"Surely not, Majesty! The papilløn population has been on the decline for centuries now. The population can hardly blame you!"

"They can, and they will," said the Queen. "Futile though the gesture will be, I will be the first one they excute—and you, my dear Court Scientist, will be next."

⇔

**The Vortex.**

"The papilløn are one of two species on their planet, along with the mots," the Doctor explained as he rifled through a compartment behind one of the roundels on the console room wall. "Symbiotes. Absolutely fascinating case. Here, hold this."

Sarah Jane took the basketball-sized mass of green crystal and held it awkwardly, trying to balance it with the overflowing manila folder, antique fob watch, and unopened bag of jelly babies he had already handed to her. "Don't you ever clean out your cupboards, Doctor?"

"Never. Now, a papilløn is born with a physical form, but soon afterward it imprints on a young mot and forms itself a chrysalis. A scant few hundred years later, it crawls out, having completely transitioned into a form made of pure psychic energy."

"A 'scant' few hundred years?"

"Well, scant for mots. They're one of the longest-lived species in the galaxy. We tried letting a couple of papilløn imprint on Time Lords once, but as soon as a Time Lord regenerates, the papilløn can't recognize him or her as the person on which it imprinted. They need a species that can stay the same for a long time. Oh, it's my field gravity detector! I thought I'd lost this. Hang on to that, Stephen."

Stephen, who was already holding, among other things, a large straw hat and what could have been a remote control designed by M. C. Escher, took the new object gingerly. "Wow. The technology in this must be incredible. And to think, if I didn't know better, I'd say it was an ordinary yo-yo."

"It is an ordinary yo-yo!" replied the Doctor. "The best device ever constructed for determining the presence, magnitude, and direction of gravity in a given area, and humans invented it two millennia before you even realized you were on a round planet. Incredible. Completely useless if you want to tell whether someone is lugging around a papilløn, of course. For that, you need . . . this!"

With a triumphant flourish, he held up a dark blue bus pass holder, flipping it open to reveal a small piece of white paper.

"It's blank," said Stephen, sounding unimpressed.

"It's blank _now_. No input yet. Take it!"

Stephen looked helplessly from the paper to the heap of junk in his arms. With a sigh, Sarah Jane dumped her own armload back in the compartment and started to toss Stephen's baggage after them. _I guess we're going to put off the cleaning for another time._

"Go on, then," said the Doctor encouragingly when Stephen finally had a free hand to take the paper.

"Um, okay. Go on and do what?"

"Just hold it up so we can see, and start talking. I know you can handle that bit."

Stephen grinned. "It's a gift. Give me any topic and I can riff on it, from the gut, for as long as the cameras are on. And most of the time when they're off, too, so I don't get out of practice. Anything in particular I should talk about?"

"How about yourself?" suggested Sarah Jane.

She wasn't surprised when Stephen missed the joke entirely. "Excellent choice! That's actually what I was planning to talk about no matter what you said." He cleared his throat. "My name is Stephen T. Colbert, and I have a dream. A dream that, one day, everyone in the world, be they black, white, or Mexican, will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood, turn on the TV, and watch my show."

Sarah Jane gasped.

The paper, which she had clearly seen to be unmarked only a few moments ago, was blank no longer. A handful of words had simply popped into being on its surface. In a readable, no-nonsense sans serif font, no less.

They said: _From Every Mountainside, Let Freem Ring!_

Seemingly oblivious, Stephen kept talking. "You see, I believe in the value of ideas. Specifically, my ideas. I figure my two cents is worth at _least_ a dollar."

The paper changed again. The font was still simple, but the words this time were gibberish, at least as far as Sarah Jane could tell:

_Still €0.02._

"But I value other people's views, too. Even when I completely disagree with someone, I have no problem inviting them on my show, so they can have an open forum in which to have me tell them exactly how they're wrong."

_Wrong = Don't Shout Loudly Enough._

"Sure, I have my critics, but I'm never going to change. People who watch my show, they know what they're getting. If they wanted calm, reasonable debate, they would watch Jon Stewart. Personally, I never do."

_Except When He Does._

"Well, maybe sometimes. Like when I feel sorry for him. Or when he has a guest that I like. Or when I need a quick dose of rage. Stewart's liberal agenda is a surefire way to help me get up a good head of anger. Along with CNN, gay porn, and bowtie pasta. It's _pasta!_ It has no business being shaped like articles of clothing! Someone might mix the two up!"

 _"Someone" = Stephen,_ clarified the paper.

"Anyway, the point is, I'm Stephen Colbert. And if you don't like it, I'll shout at you until you change your mind or agree just to shut me up."

_Nothing Will Ever Shut Him Up._

"How was that?"

" _What_ was that?" added Sarah Jane, still staring at the paper in astonishment.

"He's got a papilløn, all right," the Doctor replied. "What's more, it's _sarcastic_."


	4. Chapter 4

**Mot: 109 AE.**   
_The Doctor is in his fourth incarnation. Stephen Colbert is 44. Sarah Jane Smith is 29._

"Aha! We've arrived," said the Doctor brightly. "Come on, you two, get up. We've got a baby papilløn to find."

Sarah Jane and Stephen, their legs still a bit wobbly from a particularly erratic TARDIS trip, staggered to their feet. Sarah Jane had spent the flight pulling levers and pushing buttons as the Doctor directed, until she had been thrown to the floor by a particularly violent jolt. Stephen had briefly thought about helping her, but hadn't been able to tear his eyes away from the paper.

"Back in this century, there are more than enough papilløn to go around," the Doctor explained as he opened the door of the TARDIS. "You'll find a clutch in almost any cave, and most of them die before anyone shows up to be imprinted on. All we have to do is pick one up."

"Do you remember this?" asked Stephen, holding up the paper to see the papilløn's response. "You as a baby, me finding you, your . . . imprinting?"

 _Do You Remember Being Born?_ came the response.

"Well, there's no need to be snippy about it," grumbled Stephen as he followed the Doctor and Sarah Jane out the door. "I was just asking."

The surface of Mot, at least in this region, was made up of steep, rocky hills dotted with blue-violet shrubs. In the valley far below them stood a little cluster of red-roofed houses; in the sky above hung a dim sun and two large moons. Stephen buttoned his suit jacket against a chill gust of wind.

"How are we supposed to tell which papilløn we're supposed to get?" asked Sarah Jane. "I mean, if we pick up the wrong one, won't it change the timeline?"

"Oh, no need to worry," replied the Doctor offhandedly. "Whichever one imprints on Stephen now, in his present, will become the one in his past that he picked up in his future. It's an ontological paradox, you see."

"We're causing a paradox?" exclaimed Sarah Jane.

"Well, yes. But one of the nice ones."

⇔

**Thoros Beta: 24,280 BC (Earth time).**  
 _The Doctor is in his tenth incarnation. Stephen Col-bert is 17. Jack Harkness is old enough to have been around the block . . . and the planet . . . and the outer rim of the galaxy, with time to stop for gas._

Someone was knocking at Stephen's door. _Don't wanna get up,_ he thought blearily. _Was having such a nice dream._

Dragging the moment out as long as possible, he opened his eyes . . .

. . . and found himself staring at the blinking purple object, still cupped in his hand.

"Stephen! Wake up, already!"

Stephen was out of bed like a shot, checking to make sure he was really still in the alien room before opening the door to see Captain Jack. "You're still here!"

"Of course! Where else would I be?"

Stephen couldn't answer. For some bizarre reason he found himself too choked up to speak.

Jack didn't press the issue. "Hurry up and get dressed," he urged. "The Doctor isn't planning to stay parked here too long, and you don't want to miss your chance to see neon pink oceans."

⇔

**Mot: 109 AE.**

"So, if I understand this correctly," said Stephen, picking his way carefully over the uneven slope, "these beings are dying out at some point in the future? Along with the species that usually bonds with them? And I'm going to take one through time to renew the population?"

The Doctor had identified a dark opening in the hillside as one of the most likely places for a papilløn clutch, so they were heading towards it in spite of the dubious terrain. Stephen had never been a fan of standard Earth-green grass stains, and he suspected he would like them even less if he got a set in blue.

"Yes, that's right," confirmed the Doctor.

"So, this little pest of mine—"

_I Resent That!_

"—will need to have as much hot energy-based sex as possible for this to work out, right?"

_Ooh. I'm Starting To Like This Plan._

"Right!"

"Now I want to have this absolutely clear," Stephen continued, nearly slipping on a rock as the slope grew steeper. "This thing . . . while psychically bonded to me . . . will be doing the incorporeal nasty with other things . . . which are psychically bonded to aliens."

"Well, other aliens, anyway. What are you getting at?"

"Doctor, are you telling me that, in the noble cause of saving an entire species from extinction, I have to have lots of commitment-free sex with a bunch of hot alien women?"

"Oh, no!" exclaimed the Doctor, looking distressed. "No, not at all! The instinct will be there, but we can just lock you in the TARDIS for the duration, and you won't have to touch them at all."

"It's okay!" said Stephen bravely. "It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make."

"If papilløn are so plentiful in this time period," cut in Sarah Jane hastily, "what happens in the future to put them on the edge of extinction?"

"Psychic plague," replied the Doctor. "The really insidious kind. Doesn't just kill the population off all willy-nilly—no, it targets specific ages and genders. By the time it runs its course, there are some male papilløn of all ages still around, but very few females, and all past ideal clutch-laying age. The government will initiate a last-ditch artificial breeding program, but without any females young enough to produce viable clutches, it will fail. Which is where Stephen comes in."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, stop right there," broke in Stephen, doing just that. "It's a _girl?_ "

⇔

**Thoros Beta: 24,280 BC (Earth time).**

Under the bright green sky, Jack and the Doctor stood on the beach and watched Stephen wade in the neon pink waves, occasionally picking up a bit of mauve-colored driftwood or a fragment from an alien crustacean's shell.

"You could be a little nicer to the kid," remarked Jack.

"Nice? I'm being perfectly nice," said the Doctor evasively. "I'm taking him to see aliens, aren't I?"

"Yeah, but you aren't _talking_ to him. You haven't launched into a round of technobabble once since he's showed up. I know it wasn't your choice to bring him, but you might as well make the best of it, right? Besides, he's a little star-struck with you."

The Doctor stuck his hands in his pockets and sighed. "Yes, he is that. But I can't . . . it's complicated, Jack."

"Is this about his age? You've had younger companions before, right?"

"Yeah, I have," said the Doctor wistfully. "Adric. Brilliant, brilliant boy, died trying to save a spaceship that crashed anyway. Zoe, almost as clever as I was, caught by the Time Lords and sent home with her memory wiped. Dodo, unfortunate name but a sweet girl, made it home fine but then had a nervous breakdown. Katarina—"

"Whoa, whoa, easy there!" Grabbing the Doctor's narrow shoulders, Jack gave him a shake. "None of that! Stephen's going to be fine. He's got you _and_ me to look out for him, and I promise you, I will _not_ let him die. You got that?"

For the first time in several days, the Doctor smiled. "Aw, Jack. Jack, Jack, Jack. You're a good guy. Even if you still haven't noticed the giant squid."

Jack spun, scanned the ocean—Stephen, where was Stephen?—there, just a few meters down the beach, unharmed—and not a living thing to be seen in the clear pink surf.

When he looked back at the Doctor, the Time Lord had a refreshingly cheeky grin on his face. "Made you look."

⇔

**Mot: 109 AE.**

The Doctor turned to Stephen, looking befuddled. "Yes, your papilløn is female. I thought you knew that."

Stephen glanced down at the paper. _No Wonder I'm The Smart One,_ it said smugly.

He made a fist, crumpling it in its case, and tried to ignored the way Sarah Jane was smirking to herself. "I've had a psychic energy being taking up space in my mind since I was seventeen, and it's a _lady?_ No. No way." Time to beat a hasty retreat. "I am _not_ going to be a party tooooaaaahhh!"

—the world was spinning, blue grass and grey sky flashing in circles, rocks pounding his sides as he rolled, must have tripped over one of them and now he was tumbling down the hillside, and not the fun kind of tumbling either, the wind rushed in his ears and he dimly heard someone call his name—

—and then the ground fell away beneath him.


	5. Chapter 5

**Mot: 109 AE.**

"Hold on, Stephen!" urged Sarah Jane. "Just hold on. We'll get you out of this!"

When Stephen had pitched down the slope, Sarah Jane had automatically launched herself after him. Now she was flat on her stomach at the edge of a cliff, little tufts of grass and dirt crumbling away around her hands as they clung to Stephen's wrist, while Stephen himself dangled over a sharp and unbroken fall.

"Really?" came Stephen's voice from just below her line of vision, high and panicky. "Good! Because I'm way too sexy to die right now!"

The wind was blowing strands of hair in her face, and she didn't have a free hand to push them away. Spitting a few out of her mouth, she insisted: "I won't let you fall!"

"Of course you won't!" squeaked Stephen. "There's an entire species at risk here!"

For a moment Sarah Jane was speechless. At last she added, "There's also _you_ , remember?"

"Yeah, but you don't like me!"

His wrist slipped a little as he said this; Sarah Jane clung more tightly, nails digging into the fabric of his sleeve.

"You're . . . not the easiest person to get along with," she allowed. "But that doesn't mean I'd let you die! Papilløn or no papilløn!"

This time it was Stephen who hesitated. Or maybe he had made the mistake of looking down, and was too paralyzed with fear to speak.

But no, a moment later came his reply: "Really?"

"Really!"

"Charming as this heart-to-heart is," interrupted the Doctor's voice from above her, "I'd rather you finished it while one of you isn't hanging in midair."

A strip of cloth with a loop tied at the end was lowered past Sarah Jane's vision: the Doctor's scarf, with one end knotted around itself.

"Hook your arm through this, Stephen. Not just your wrist, either. Get it all the way up to your shoulder, then grab the rope and hang on for dear life. Yes, that's right. Steady there, Sarah Jane! Don't let yourself fall. Now, on three, pull. One—two—three!"

In one great heave they hauled Stephen up over the edge, and all three collapsed on the slope in a tired, windblown, disorderly heap.

Stephen was the first to get up and take stock of himself. "Dammit!" he exclaimed, looking down at his suit. "Grass stains!"

⇔

**The Vortex.**

"Isn't she just the most adorable thing?"

The baby papilløn had a segmented, grublike body, paper-white, the size of Sarah Jane's clenched fist when rolled up. Its eyes were closed slits, and four pincers surrounded its small, grasping mouth. It was, in her opinion, one of the ugliest things she had ever seen.

"Okay, so she's not really adorable," allowed Stephen, cupping the creature tenderly in his palms. "My gut is telling me she is, but I'm pretty sure my gut is wrong on this one."

"Maybe it's your adult version of the papilløn thinking it," suggested Sarah Jane. "What does it say?"

Shifting the baby into one hand, Stephen began reaching into his pockets, then gasped. "The paper's gone! I must have dropped it when I went over the cliff! I'm sorry, Doctor, I didn't mean to—"

This time, the Doctor nipped the fearful litany in the bud. "Nonsense! Don't worry about it. The papilløn itself is still safe in your mind; you just can't talk to it now. I've got another bit of slightly psychic paper lying about somewhere; I'll dig it out later if you desperately want more sarcasm. Is it changing color?"

"What, the paper? I don't know; I lost it."

"No, no, don't be silly! The papilløn. The physical one, obviously. Is it still pure white?"

Stephen checked. "She's turning blue! What does that mean? Does she need oxygen? Should we warm her up?"

The Doctor grinned. "Not at all. This is good. This is very good. It's imprinted! All it needs now is a cool dark place where it can form a chrysalis and then sit for a few hundred years. I believe there's a cabinet in your room that would be perfect."

⇔

**Traken: 1974 AD (Earth time).**  
 _Stephen Col-bert is 17._

After changing his cufflinks for the fourth time, Stephen finally decided he liked this pair, then started wondering if he was wearing the right tie.

When the Doctor had suggested they drop in on a fancy ball, it had almost been a relief. If there was any skill Stephen Col-bert was secure in, it was his ability to carry himself properly in a tux. But now that it actually came time to dress, he couldn't stop fretting. He (along with Captain Jack) would be representing all of humanity here. It was crucial that he do it right.

In the end, though, it didn't matter if not a single Trakenite (Trakener? Trakenling?) was impressed by his display. He would settle for the Doctor's approval.

For no reason that he could explain, Stephen paused in his preparations and went over to the table where he had left the odd purple lump. Somehow the warmth of it was comforting—as if, even though he had never seen anything like it in his life, he _knew_ it somehow. Or as if it knew _him_.

He picked it up . . . and it was cool. With a shiver, Stephen turned it over to see a large rip down the side.

_What if I wasn't supposed to touch it?_

_What if there's no way to fix it?_

_What if it's really important to the Doctor, for some alien reason or other?_

_Well,_ he resolved, _I just won't tell him._

Setting the object down with the rip facing the table, Stephen went back to the large oval mirror and focused with furious intensity on making his tie _perfect_.

⇔

**The Vortex.**  
 _Stephen Colbert is 44. Sarah Jane Smith is 29._

As Stephen set the ugly

( _Beautiful,_ said a voice in the back of his mind)

little creature down on the shelf of a cabinet, he heard footsteps outside and stood up quickly. "Hi."

"Hey," said Sarah Jane, easing the full-length oval mirror off of her back and onto his floor. "I brought you something."

"You . . . didn't have to do that, you know."

Sarah Jane shrugged. "It's only a mirror. No big deal."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

"Okay." In a very small voice, Stephen added, "Thank you."

"Don't mention it. Now, come on! We've got a species to save!"

⇔

**Mot: 4734 AE (Ailurean Era).**  
 _The Doctor is in his fourth incarnation. Stephen Colbert is 44. Sarah Jane Smith is 29._

Doctor Racine sat alone in her office, trying to muster up the courage to deliver the bad news.

Her Queen had predicted the unrest long before it reached the breaking point, but even someone like Racine, who did not have a single political fiber in her being, could see the turmoil in the citizenry these years. There could only be one outcome now. She would deliver the announcement that all of their experiments had failed, and then the mob would tear her to pieces.

She rose from her seat—and was struck by an unfamiliar noise in the corridor. It wasn't a mob of enraged citizens, but it was certainly loud.

Opening her door, Racine found a large blue box sitting in the middle of her hall.

As she gaped at it, a panel on one side swung open and a strange being hopped out. "People of Mot, rejoice!" he exclaimed. "Your sexy, sexy savior from outer space has arr—oh. Uh, hello."

Racine was struck dumb. The creature was like no animal Mot had ever known. It was pink, for one thing, and very fleshy.

But it _had a papilløn._ A _female_ papilløn. And _young_.

Her own papilløn was instantly attracted, and Racine found herself clicking her pincers in appreciation.

Another, similar creature appeared behind the first. "Nice to meet you!" he said brightly. "I'm the Doctor. And I brought a friend."

"Yes!" squeaked the first creature. "And she's going to get along _perfectly_ with your little hanger-on, I can tell. You two crazy kids have fun! I'll just be in the TARDIS. Alone."

 _Hi There,_ said his papilløn smoothly, as its host ran back into the box and slammed the door. _Are There More Like You Around Here?_

Though her own papilløn was reluctant to share, Racine overruled him. "Yes, there are. In fact, there's a bit of a mob outside who will be _very_ pleased to see you."

⇔

**Traken: 1974 AD (Earth time).**  
 _The Doctor is in his tenth incarnation. Stephen Col-bert is 17. If, like wine, people improve with age, Jack Harkness is darn near perfect._

"Come on, this way, right-o, keep away from that statue!" ordered the Doctor as he shepherded the tuxedo-clad Jack and Stephen toward the front steps of a bustling Trakenite mansion. "Don't want to pre-empt my own brilliance. Ah, hello!" he added brightly to the well-dressed but strikingly muscular man standing at the gate. "Nice to meet you. Lovely evening, isn't it?"

"Do you have an invitation, sir?" asked the guard without preamble.

"Of course we do. Got it here somewhere—aha!" The Doctor pulled out a dark blue bus pass case and flipped it open. "Right here."

The guard squinted at the paper within, then raised his arm and spoke into something on his wrist. "Suspicious characters at front gate. Requesting backup."

Startled, the Doctor stood stock-still for a moment, then regained the presence of mind to look at the slightly psychic paper. Instead of a properly formatted Trakenite formal invitation, it sported a messy scrawl: _he just wants you to like him like him please please like him._

"Doctor?" asked Jack. "Is everything all right?"

The Doctor turned to them and grinned broadly. "All's fine! Just a slight change of plans. RUN!"

⇔

**Mot: 1 CE (Colbertan Era).**

"Stephen?" called Sarah Jane, knocking gingerly at his door. "It's worked brilliantly. There are healthy papilløn clutches all over the place. The people of Mot are working on a banquet in your honor. They want to give you a medal, and something called the Order of Paiyatemu, First Class, and probably a fruit basket of some kind. Do you feel up to it?"

The man opened the door, and Sarah Jane had to fight not to let her expression change. Stephen was more disheveled than she had imagined he _could_ get. His cheeks were flushed, his clothes hanging loosely, bags under his eyes.

In spite of this, his lips were curved into a sleepy, sated smile. "'Saright. For giant bugs, y'know, the sex is still okay when 'sjust mental."

". . . I see."

"But . . . c'n I have a bit of time to, whatsit, sleep, first?"

"Oh, of course! Not a problem!"

"'S tiring, being stud for a whole planet," mumbled Stephen. "Or mare. Whatever."

"I can imagine," lied Sarah Jane. "Listen, you sleep, okay? We'll party when you've had some time to recover."

Stephen giggled. "I've had hundreds of girlfriends!" he announced to nobody in particular.

"Good night, Stephen."

⇔

**Traken: 1974 AD (Earth time).**  
 _The Doctor is in his tenth incarnation. Stephen Col-bert is 17. Jack Harkness is older than several well-established civilizations._

Jack pushed Stephen into the TARDIS and slammed the door, while the Doctor sprinted to the console and began pulling levers. The room began to vibrate as the ship took off.

"So much for this!" cried the Doctor over the noise, tossing the bus pass aside as he circled the console. "It's going to be totally useless until you leave, Stephen! Might as well be an American dollar in 1066 when you're around!"

"I'm sorry!" cried Stephen, panic rising in his voice. "What did I do?"

"Doctor—" began Jack in exasperation.

"No, no, it means he just closed a time loop!" When the Doctor looked up from the console, his face was still broken by a broad manic grin. "That's a good thing!" he clarified.

"It—it is?" stammered Stephen.

"Oh, it is. It's good. It's better than good. It's fantastic! Means we're going to be doing a lot more running, though. Think you're up to that?"

Stephen looked anxiously at Jack, who did his best to give the kid an encouraging smile, then back at the Doctor. "Yeah," he said. "Running's okay. Actually, that was kinda fun."

"Brilliant!" replied the Time Lord, mashing some buttons apparently at random. "Let's go find somewhere to run!"

**Author's Note:**

> See also: [Shoutouts & references](http://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=26188&chapter=6) for serial 2.


End file.
